He has two loans with our company. The first loan was written by my direct (female) boss over a year ago, the loan is secured with his truck as collateral.

The second loan was written by me. He had won an economy car in a card game and he wanted to borrow money on it. (I only write the loan that the male owner tells me to write, I don’t get to decide who gets money, how much, or the terms of the loan).

The loan on the economy car was for a few hundred dollars. In exchange, the loan was written using the car as collateral, with the loan also attached to the truck. (My state allows 2 liens on each vehicle, we had first and second lien on the truck, and first lien on the car).

When he wanted more money, on his first loan, the loan was…

It’s true. I don’t mean to make you jealous, but lately, I have at least one long session of really great crying most days. What I call the “lovely cry,” where my face gets all red and swollen and puffy, my nose runs, I drool, and I make all kinds of noises. I’m so proud of my crying, so proud of myself whenever I manage to accomplish a really good cry, and so relieved. I get a bit worried if a few days go by and I haven’t had a proper cry. I try to remind myself how important it is, and give myself time and space for a healthy crying session.

Again, not to blow my own horn, but it has taken some work—decades of practice and effort—to get good at frequent, healthy crying. Mostly, it takes two things: 1) the courage to feel your feelings, and 2) the…

Jason Mankey recently published a blog post on the subject of how worshiping the gods is not limited to reciting prayers or making physical offerings in a shrine. Art, writing, dance, and countless other forms of creativity can also count as worship, even if created by someone who didn’t believe in the gods as real independent entities. Mankey pointed out that:

“By the middle of the Fifteenth Century CE the Italian Renaissance was in full-bloom, and cities such as Rome were overrun with images from Pagan antiquity. Goddesses and Gods peaked out from behind nearly every street-corner, and statues and paintings featured the gods of Rome and Greece for the first time in nearly 1000 years. If you had walked through Rome in 1550 you would have assumed you were in the middle of a Pagan city, so prevalent were the images of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Artemis. “

Mankey, J…